One of my most longstanding and controversial opinions is that the move from defined-benefit pensions to defined-contribution pensions was a success. It’s an especially unpopular view amid stories of retirees who fall through the cracks and a grim market that is pruning many retirement accounts, if not retirement dreams.

Americans will legally wager $3.3 billion on the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments this year, the American Gaming Association said.

Apollo Global Management Inc. is ramping up efforts to give investors more regular insight into the value of its opaque private credit holdings, just as a spate of redemption requests from such funds rattles the wider market.

Selling pressure for leveraged buyout loans has been high all year, amid fears that artificial intelligence will damage or even bankrupt the software companies that account for a fair chunk of the market.

Because we are often asked to deliver sales training and coaching to advisors, I’m going to make a guess that your leaders believe if they don’t keep talking about growth, you will stop putting a focus on it. The impression might be that you care deeply about your clients, but not so much about growth and new clients coming into the firm.

After months of heavy selling on fears of artificial-intelligence disruption, software stocks appear to have found a bottom — at least for now.

President Donald Trump said the US will get its first new oil refinery in 50 years with the help of investment from India’s Reliance Industries Ltd.

War with Iran is adding a new level of chaos to already uncertain times. What about your retirement savings? Is your investment portfolio safe? Is it time to think about pulling out of the stock market?

Those are a lot of disappointments in a relatively short time. That also left some investors wondering if Treasuries are still the bear-market hedge they are touted to be — which prompted me to ask if they ever were. After digging into the data, I discovered a surprising answer: no.

Establishing that concentration is not unprecedented is important, but the more consequential question is whether concentration makes the market riskier. Kritzman and Turkington attack this question from multiple angles, and their findings are strikingly consistent: concentration has essentially no relationship with subsequent risk or return.

Gold fell, pressured by a stronger US dollar and concern about the prospect of higher interest rates, as the war in the Middle East extended into a second week and oil rallied.

Netflix Inc.’s stock price is staging a dramatic reversal triggered by management’s decision to walk away from its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. late last month.

With “energy dominance” comes great turbulence. President Donald Trump’s open-ended war against Iran reflects a US seemingly unconstrained by energy needs and ready to wield its own fossil fuels as instruments of power.

Looking at the energy market with a wide-angle lens, I don’t see anything remotely approaching the pain of 2021-22, when the energy crisis label was appropriate for Europe. There’s nothing matching the contours of the 1990-91 shock, let alone the 1973-74 and 1979 crises.

Credit investors are unwinding long positions worth tens of billions of dollars and jumping into hedging trades.

Treasuries fell for a fourth day — lifting yields to the highest levels in several weeks — as rising oil prices ignited inflation expectations and dented the outlook for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission asked leveraged-ETF issuers not to move forward with a new wave of planned funds, using a rare group call Monday to renew its push against increasingly aggressive fund structures.

Adding tax management services to your practice calls for more than an assessment of potential revenues and client interest. Tax management introduces new compliance demands and sometimes complex business management needs that might not be right for every firm.

Stocks attempted a rebound Wednesday morning as traders seized on a report that Iranian officials had indirectly reached out to the US about potentially ending the conflict in the Middle East. New data pointing to steadiness in the US labor market also helped fuel gains.

Decades of “regulatory creep” and onerous disclosure requirements have discouraged companies from going public, say leaders of the Securities and Exchange Commission. To revitalize American markets, they plan to pare back those demands, especially for smaller firms. “We need a reset,” Chairman Paul Atkins recently declared.

Back in 2008, executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. were zealots for valuing their assets at exactly the prices where they could be sold. Critics said this fervor for fair value inflamed the financial crisis, while supporters argued it helped investors and lenders at least know where they stood.

European stocks rose Friday as oil prices slipped below $100 a barrel, following news reports of an Indian tanker’s passage from the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping artery that’s been effectively shut amid the Iran war.

His time horizon is infinite. His capital is permanent. And the rewards, he argues, should be enormous.

Sophisticated email marketing requires automation: welcome sequences for new subscribers, nurture campaigns based on content interests, and reengagement sequences for inactive prospects.

Amazon.com Inc. has blown the primary market for new debt wide open just days after market volatility, sparked by soaring-then-plummeting oil prices, all but halted issuance. Its mega offering is priced cheaply, for a reason: Too much of a good thing is still too much.

The US and Israel’s war on Iran is forcing world governments to intervene to shore up energy supplies, with ongoing missile fire from both sides disrupting flows through a key waterway.

Prediction markets aren't going away. They're designed to be fun and exciting for bettors, intellectually engaging, and culturally resonant. The question isn't whether your clients will participate, but whether you'll have a productive framework ready when they do.

For months, Wall Street’s panoply of risk-hedging strategies did little but lose money. Now, as uncertainty sparked by the war with Iran hits the market’s most popular trades, investors that loaded up on portfolio protection are being rewarded.

The European Central Bank can be forgiven for feeling nauseous as a massive global deleveraging of risk since the Iran war started has hit the euro area’s currency and interest-rate markets particularly hard.

Industrial metals sit at the center of this rupture because they are foundational to nearly every strategic priority governments now care about: power generation, grid stability, defense readiness, and domestic manufacturing capacity.

The irony of modern passive investing is that the securities built for patience and longer-term discipline have become tools for short-term speculation. Passive investors, often without realizing it, are behaving more like active traders, rotating aggressively between sectors and factors in response to narratives.

Iran’s strategy in its war with the US and Israel is by now clear: Impose an intolerable economic cost on President Donald Trump, forcing him to abandon his “war of choice” as American gasoline prices surge. Is there any way the Islamic Republic’s blueprint for survival can fail?

Nearly 50 million Americans go to court each year without a lawyer. Low-income Americans are especially vulnerable, with most saying they “do not get any or enough legal help” for their major civil legal problems.

The most-read articles on Advisor Perspectives for February covered an eclectic mix of interesting topics, ranging from whether money can buy happiness to what a depreciating dollar could mean for investors.

A great financial economist once tried to convince me that retail investors should not be allowed to buy individual stocks. I strenuously disagreed: Wasn’t this America, the country that encourages risk-taking? Why shut regular investors out of the chance to get rich?

The Trump administration has struck a deal that would see Venezuela’s state mining company sell as much as 1,000 kilograms of gold to commodities trader Trafigura, according to people familiar with the matter.

Intercontinental Exchange Inc. is acquiring a stake in OKX in a deal that values the cryptocurrency exchange operator at $25 billion.

Take an educational approach. Underscore how pleased you are about her energy and excitement and how much you want her to be an enthused member of the team. Perhaps you could guide her on how to find opportunities more aligned with your ideal client focus

The last time an armed conflict upended the global energy economy, crude spiked past $100 and shares in oil and gas producers rallied for months. A similar trajectory might be unfolding as war rages in the Middle East.

The public loves to hate short sellers, the investors who profit from declining securities’ values. Their bad reputation is mostly undeserved. In reality, many provide a valuable service, taking the other side of frauds and bubbles, and generally helping drive prices toward a semblance of fair value.

Volatility in US Treasuries jumped to a nine-month high as the Iran war fanned inflation concerns and upended traders’ expectations on the Federal Reserve’s policy path.

A key measure of US inflation was tame at the start of the year. But another metric is shaping up to paint a very different picture.

For more than a decade, emerging markets have been a heartbreak for those who place their faith in developing countries. Since 2010, the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index has not outperformed its US counterpart for two consecutive years.

The real value of AI isn’t in doing the marketing for you; it’s in making the process more efficient. Tasks that once required significant time and effort can be simplified and streamlined.

Hedge fund positioning across US equities has created a setup for stocks to rip higher after their recent wobble, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s trading desk.

President Donald Trump said the US will get its first new oil refinery in 50 years with the help of investment from India’s Reliance Industries Ltd.

The practical answer isn’t to chase a “right” score, but to treat ESG data as one input in a disciplined framework focused on long-term risk, resilience, and opportunity.

President Donald Trump said the US and Israel are making significant progress in the war on Iran and could end the conflict “very soon,” cooling a surge in oil prices.

Big Tech’s consolidation of power seemed a foregone conclusion even as Sam Altman’s OpenAI sparked an artificial intelligence boom with ChatGPT.

Stocks and currencies have seen steep losses, with the MSCI equity index posting its biggest weekly drop in six years, and bond yields have jumped.

US stocks dropped on Monday, continuing on from the biggest weekly drop since October, as the prospect of a prolonged war in Iran sent energy prices soaring and stoked fears over inflation.

Traditional safe havens — Treasuries, the yen, the Swiss franc, and gold — have offered investors no refuge as the Middle East conflict roiled markets this week.

Bond investors, who have been focused on inflation since the Iran war began, say a surprise in the monthly US jobs report has the potential to upend their expectations for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts.

US stocks have flipped the script for international investors since war erupted in the Mideast, handily outpacing the rest of the world after trailing their global peers badly last month.

A world where we can cook up AI videos in seconds from the apps on our phones might seem remote from the physical realities of warfare in the seaways of the Persian Gulf. In fact, they’re closely intertwined.

The war in Iran is forcing investors to reevaluate one of their most profitable stock strategies, leading some to conclude that the “Sell America, Buy Asia” trade has reached an inflection point.

It turns out, the biggest financial victim of President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran is not the S&P 500, but equity markets across North Asia.

Transforming a practice built on guardrails and restrictions into a strategic enabler might seem contradictory. But the conditions for this shift have been building, and they're finally converging.

Most investors, from grandma to the mightiest sovereign wealth funds, own bonds to help steady their portfolio and provide a ready reserve for spending. So, it’s notable when prominent voices start questioning their safety.

President Donald Trump said the US will provide insurance guarantees and naval escorts to ensure safe passage for oil tankers and other vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to head off a potential energy crisis caused by the war with Iran.